pdf version of the entry Fictional Entities https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/fictional-entities/ Fictional Entities from the Fall 2018 Edition of the First published Thu Jul 26, 2018

Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophical issues surrounding fiction have attracted increasing attention from philosophers over the past few decades. What follows is a discussion of Philosophy of one familiar and quite fundamental topic in this area: fictional entities (both the issue of what such entities might be like and whether there really are such entities).

A familiar characteristic of works of fiction is that they feature fictional characters: individuals whose exploits are written about in works of fiction Edward N. Zalta Uri Nodelman Colin Allen R. Lanier Anderson Principal Editor Senior Editor Associate Editor Faculty Sponsor and who make their first appearance in a work of fiction. Shakespeare’s Editorial Board Hamlet, for example, features the fictional character Hamlet, Doyle’s The https://plato.stanford.edu/board.html Hound of the Baskervilles features Sherlock Holmes, Tolstoy’s Anna

Library of Congress Catalog Data Karenina features Anna Karenina, and so on. All of these works feature ISSN: 1095-5054 numerous other fictional characters, of course (Ophelia and Dr Watson, for example); indeed, some works of fiction are characterized by the sheer Notice: This PDF version was distributed by request to mem- abundance of their characters (Russian novels are often said to have this bers of the Friends of the SEP Society and by courtesy to SEP content contributors. It is solely for their fair use. Unauthorized characteristic). Fictional characters belong to the class of entities variously distribution is prohibited. To learn how to join the Friends of the known as fictional entities or fictional objects or ficta, a class that includes SEP Society and obtain authorized PDF versions of SEP entries, not just animate objects of fiction (fictional persons, animals, monsters, please visit https://leibniz.stanford.edu/friends/ . and so on) but also inanimate objects of fiction such as fictional places (Anthony Trollope’s cathedral town of Barchester and Tolkien’s home of Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy the elves, Rivendell, for example). As stated, however, it doesn’t include Copyright c 2018 by the publisher

The Metaphysics Research Lab entities located in the real world, although real entities do have an DRAFTCenter for the Study of Language and Information important role to play in works of fiction. Thus, neither London nor Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 Napoleon are fictional entities, although the first is the quite essential Fictional Entities Copyright c 2018 by the authors backdrop to what goes on in the Holmes stories while the second plays an

Fred Kroon and Alberto Voltolini important role in the events described in War and Peace. (While London All rights reserved. and Napoleon are not fictional entities, some have thought that the London Copyright policy: https://leibniz.stanford.edu/friends/info/copyright/ of the Holmes stories and the Napoleon of War and Peace should be

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classed as special fictional entities. This view has recently gained some Academic Tools popularity: cf. Landini 1990, Bonomi 2008, Voltolini 2006, 2013, Other Internet Resources Motoarca 2014.) Related Entries

The above characterization suggests that fictional entities constitute a special type of entity. Not surprisingly, then, one fundamental 1. The Metaphysics of Fictional Entities philosophical question we can ask about fictional entities is a question about their nature: what kind of thing is a fictional entity? This question is As Thomasson (1999: 5) puts it, the first question amounts to asking: what separate from what seems an even more fundamental question: why would fictional entities be, if there were any? To this question different suppose that there are any fictional entities in the first place? After all, our answers have been proposed. But however much they differ, they all try to world never contained a Sherlock Holmes or a Rivendell—these alleged accommodate in some way or other what seems to be an intuitive datum entities make their appearance in works of fiction, not works of fact. facing philosophers who theorize about fictional entities: these entities Following the division in Thomasson 1999, we shall call the first question lack existence, or at least existence as ordinary physical objects. the metaphysical question, and the second the ontological question. According to this datum—call it the nonexistence datum—paradigmatic objects of fiction like Hamlet and Holmes do not exist. In support of this 1. The Metaphysics of Fictional Entities datum, note that the layperson would almost certainly answer “No” to the 1.1 Possibilism question of whether such objects exist, although she might qualify this 1.2 Meinong and Neo-Meinongianism answer by adding “there is at least some sense in which they don’t.” We 1.2.1 Meinong’s theory of objects also appeal to nonexistence in this sense when we want to dispute the view 1.2.2 Orthodox and unorthodox neo-Meinongianism that some alleged individual is a genuine historical figure; we might say, 1.2.3 Two kinds of properties vs. two modes of predication for example, that King Arthur does not exist, thereby underlining our view 1.3 Creationism that a search for a historical King Arthur would be in vain. 2. The Ontology of Fictional Entities 2.1 Semantical Arguments for and Against Realism Those who do not believe that there are any fictional entities (fictional 2.1.1 Russell’s anti-realism antirealists, as we shall call them) will claim that the nonexistence datum 2.1.2 Metafictional sentences and “in the fiction” operators has an ontological reading only: to say that fictional entities do not exist 2.1.3 The descriptivist problem for theories of fictional amounts to saying that in the overall domain of what there is there are no names such things as fictional entities. As they see it, fictional realists (those who 2.1.4 Pretense Theory do believe that there are fictional entities) are the only ones to give the 2.1.5 Quantificational arguments for realism datum a certain metaphysical reading, namely that fictional entities have 2.2 Ontological Arguments for and Against Realism the property of not existing (in some sense or other). They might also Bibliography insist that fictional realists are the only ones to think that the nonexistence

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of fictional entities is determined by their nature as fictional entities. But 1.1 Possibilism this overstates the case. Because they hold that there are no such things as fictional entities, even antirealists are likely to admit that the fact that there One way to account for the nonexistence datum is the possibilist theory of is no such thing as some alleged entity X follows from the fact that X has fictional entities, which holds that fictional entities do not exist in the been shown to be fictional. That is what happened in the case of King actual world but only in some other possible worlds. In this respect, Arthur and many other legendary or mythological entities (fictional fictional entities are thought to be like other merely possible entities such entities in the broad sense). People originally supposed (cf. Geoffrey of as talking donkeys. According to standard versions of the possible worlds Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae) that King Arthur was a real framework, some things not present at the actual world exist as talking person, a British leader who ruled England after the departure of the donkeys at some merely possible worlds. Similarly, the possibilist theory Romans, until it was discovered that King Arthur is merely a figure of holds that Sherlock Holmes does not exist in the actual world, although he legend, a fictional entity. It was this discovery that licensed the conclusion does exist at some merely possible worlds: worlds in which the Holmes that King Arthur doesn’t exist. So it seems that even antirealists have a stories are fact. stake in the answer to the metaphysical question “What would it take for Such a possibilist theory is faced with a problem of ontological something to be a fictional entity?” indeterminacy. For there is more than one possible world in which Conan One further comment about the nonexistence datum before we turn to Doyle’s Holmes stories are fact, and in which there is a witty, cocaine- various accounts of fictional objects and the ways in which such accounts addicted detective called “Holmes” who lives at 221B Baker St., has a cope with the datum. As we have already seen, it is natural when friend called “Watson”, and does the things recorded of him in the Holmes discussing the datum to use quantifiers such as “Some things are …” stories. Not all of these Holmes-candidates are the same; while they all (“There are things that are …”), and “Everything is…”, whose domain match each other in terms of what the stories say about Holmes, they may appears to include both existent and nonexistent objects. We do so when be very different in other crucial ways—they may have had very different we say, for example, that there are objects, such as fictional objects, that childhoods, including different parents, and so on. (Indeed, when don’t exist. Fictional antirealists will take such talk with a grain of salt, characters are underdescribed in a story, a single possible world may since they do not acknowledge a sense in which there really are any contain many individuals who fit exactly what the story says about the fictional objects. Fictional realists, on the other hand, will think that a character.) We can now ask: which of these different witty, cocaine- sentence like “There are objects, among them Hamlet and Holmes, that addicted detectives is Holmes? (cf. Kaplan 1973: 505–6; Kripke 1972 don’t exist” is either literally true or at least it conveys a truth. They [1980: 156–8]). There seems to be no principled way of deciding. typically acknowledge a distinction between unrestricted quantifiers, Kripke suggests that this indeterminacy shows that none of these possible whose domain includes even nonexistent objects, and restricted entities is Holmes, “[f]or if so, which one?” (Kripke 1972 [1980: 157–8]). quantifiers, whose domain includes only existent objects (cf., e.g., Berto But suppose, for argument’s sake, that this indeterminacy could somehow 2013). be resolved, perhaps by the story including details of certain properties

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that, arguably, only Holmes could have, such as his being the only person similarity, the various Holmes-candidates are all counterparts by to have originated from certain gametes. Even in that case, there would be acquaintance for you (or, as Lewis seems to have thought, for your strong reason not to identify Holmes with a merely possible entity. Take a community of fellow-readers)—they are all, in their respective worlds, the different case, that of the mythical sword Excalibur extracted from a rock person called “Holmes” whom you or your community (or rather, your by King Arthur. As everyone knows, this sword does not exist. Its counterparts) learn about by reading the Holmes stories, told as known nonexistence would not be threatened by someone’s discovering an object fact (cf. Lewis 1983***a or b?*; Currie 1990: 137–9; Kroon 1994). In with all the properties that the Breton cycle ascribes to Excalibur. No short, the fact that there are so many distinct Holmes-candidates is less matter how similar, an actual object that resembles a fictional object would embarrassing for Lewis than it is for other possibilists. (See also the not be that fictional object (Kripke 1972 [1980: 157–8]). Now, moving suggestion in Sainsbury 2010 (pp. 82–3) that Lewis could have from the actual world to merely possible worlds does not change things: accommodated a plurality of possible Holmes-candidates by refusing to why should Excalibur be identified even with a merely possible entity? identify Holmes with any of them, instead modeling the relation between Had a merely possible entity exactly matching Excalibur in its properties talk of Holmes and talk of these possible Holmes-candidates on the model been actual, it would not have been the fictional Excalibur, by the of the notion of precisification used in Lewis’s semantics of vagueness.) Kripkean argument rehearsed above. So how are things different if this merely possible Excalibur-like sword remains merely possible? In a Lewis’s counterpart theory is not widely accepted, however. In general, nutshell, if there is a gap between fiction and reality, there is also a gap Kripkean objections against possibilism about fictional entities have been between fiction and possibility. more influential. Some have argued, however, that such objections only succeed if we use a ‘variable domain’ conception of what there is to These difficulties for possibilism do not equally affect all versions of the quantify over at any particular world, a conception that allows the set of doctrine. Consider David Lewis’s version of the doctrine, which is objects available at one world to differ from the set of objects available at embedded in his realist account of possible objects (Lewis 1986). Roughly another world (Kripke’s preferred semantics for modal logic is of this speaking, Lewis takes a possible individual to be a Holmes-candidate if it kind.) Suppose instead that one adopts a version of a ‘fixed domain’ has Holmes’s properties in a possible world in which the Holmes stories conception of quantification on which one has a fictional individual at are told as known fact (Lewis 1978). For Lewis, each such individual is a one’s disposal as a nonexistent entity in the actual world and as an existent part of one world and not part of any other world (possible individuals are entity in other possible worlds (Priest 2005, Berto 2011). If so, the in a sense ‘world-bound’ on Lewis’s view); no Holmes-candidate is indeterminacy problem may not arise. As Priest (2005: 119–20) puts it, we therefore identical to any other Holmes-candidate. But unlike more first of all have Doyle’s conception of Sherlock Holmes; this Sherlock doctrinaire possibilists, Lewis can use his counterpart theory (Lewis 1986) Holmes—the Holmes that Doyle conceives of—is an individual in the to offer a principled way of counting each such Holmes-candidate as being actual world but it does not exist there; it exists only in other worlds. For Holmes. Suppose you are a reader of the Holmes stories. Each Holmes- Priest, then, Doyle doesn’t arbitrarily pick one Holmes candidate from candidate is a counterpart for you of every other Holmes-candidate. For among all possible Holmes candidates, each located in its own possible even if they should differ substantially in terms of overall qualitative world. Rather, Doyle intends a particular individual that does not exist in

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the actual world but which instead realizes the Holmes stories in some (1) Holmes is cleverer than any actual detective. other possible worlds. Trivially, this individual is Holmes. (Doyle manages this even though the actual world contains many other possible We seem to be saying that Holmes actually has such comparative features, individuals that don’t exist there but realize the Holmes stories in other that is, has them in the actual world, not merely in some possible world or possible worlds (Priest 2005: 93–4).) Of course, one might still wonder other. Suppose that we read (1) instead as saying, à la Priest: how it is that Doyle is acquainted with this individual via the intentionality (1P) Holmes is possibly cleverer than any actual detective. of his thought, as Priest claims, rather than with any of the other Holmes candidates. Is authorial intending a creative act, perhaps, one that first (More precisely, relative to worlds in which Holmes is as he is described brings it about that there is an object of the right kind, as Thomasson to be in the Holmes stories, Holmes has a greater degree of cleverness than (1999: 90) suggests? All the indications are that Priest rejects such a view: that possessed by any detective in the actual world; cf. Priest 2005: 123.) “an act of pure intention can intend an object even when there are other But no such cross-world way of reading (1) matches the way we would indiscriminable objects” (2005: 142). read any other sentence involving a comparison between individuals. Take: Such a possibilism also faces another problem. For Priest, as for other possibilists, fictional entities do not actually possess the properties in (2) Stalin was crueler than any other actual dictator. terms of which they are characterized in the relevant stories; they only have these properties in (some of) the worlds in which they exist. Sherlock It would clearly be incorrect to read (2) as: Holmes, for instance, is not actually a detective since he does not exist. (2P) Stalin was possibly crueler than any other actual dictator Rather, Holmes is only possibly a detective; he is only a detective in possible worlds in which he exists. (Note that he is not a detective in all (say, in the sense that, relative to worlds in which Stalin fits the orthodox the worlds in which he exists, since it is presumably a truth about Holmes account of his activities, Stalin is crueler than any other dictator in the that he might not have had the career that he ended up with; in some actual world). (2) is intended to be a substantive claim about how Stalin possible worlds, Holmes therefore exists without being a detective.) Now, actually was, not a claim about how he might have been. In addition, a it is admittedly strange to say that a fictional object like Holmes is a possibilist reading like (1P) makes it hard to make sense of the attitudes detective in the very same sense in which, say, a certain actual member of we hold towards fictional characters (Kroon 2008: 201, 2012). Our belief the New York police force is a detective. But retreating to the possibilist in Holmes’s great cleverness explains our admiration for Holmes, just as view that Holmes has such properties only in merely possible worlds our belief in Anna Karenina’s suffering explains our pity for Anna carries its own costs; for one thing, it seems to underestimate the role of Karenina. It is hard to see how our belief in Holmes’s possible cleverness the actual world in various familiar relational claims we can make about could do this. In reply, Priest has insisted that this is precisely how we fictional objects. Consider cases in which we compare such objects with should understand such claims: Holmes is admired for the things he does actual concrete individuals. Suppose we say: in the Holmes worlds, while a real individual such as Mandela is admired

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for what he actually did (2016: 217). But this seems to beg the question. which they exist (so long as the stories that characterize them represent the Surely the mere fact that there are possible worlds in which Stalin world as being determinate down to the last detail). This is so even if the dedicates his life to rescuing migrants from death in the Mediterranean stories do not themselves fill in these details. For example, in worlds in sea, say, does not make him worthy of admiration in the actual world, which the Holmes stories are true, Holmes is left-handed, right-handed, or although it may make him an object of admiration to people in these other ambidextrous, even though the stories themselves do not tell us which (all worlds. Why should it be any different with Holmes? that is true in the Holmes stories is that, having hands, he is one of these).

The next approach to fictional entities to be discussed (the (neo-) 1.2.1 Meinong’s theory of objects Meinongian approach) is able to avoid such problems. But before we describe this approach, we should note that Priest himself subscribes to a The view that fictional objects are Meinongian objects constitutes a very broader theory than possibilism. As many philosophers have noted, different metaphysical option. Meinong (1904) thought that over and fictional narratives are often inconsistent. The Holmes stories, for above the concrete entities that exist spatiotemporally and the ideal or example, characterize Dr Watson as having a war wound on a single abstract entities that exist non-spatiotemporally, there are entities that shoulder, variously given as his left and his right shoulder. Lewis (1983a: neither exist spatiotemporally nor exist non-spatiotemporally: these are the 277–8) suggests that, typically, impossible fictions can be dealt with by paradigmatic Meinongian objects that lack any kind of being. Meinong invoking only possible worlds (on Lewis’s preferred view, both φ and not- himself used “[mere] subsistence” (Bestehen) for the non-spatiotemporal φ can be true in such an impossible fiction, but not their conjunction). But kind of being, reserving “existence” (Existenz) for the spatiotemporal there are difficulties with this suggestion when extended to certain deeply kind. “Sein” was his word for the most general kind of being, which entrenched contradictions. Thus consider certain time-travel stories. Priest includes both subsistence and existence. We will continue to use ”exists” himself concocts a story that wouldn’t make sense unless a particular for the most general mode of being, i.e., Meinong’s Sein. fictional box—Sylvan’s box—was an impossible object (Priest 2005: 125ff.). Philosophers like Priest invoke impossible worlds to deal with Even though Meinongian objects do not exist, they do have properties. In such stories, and argue that some fictional objects are impossible objects to particular, Meinong thought that their being such-and-so (their Sosein) is the extent that the only worlds in which the stories that characterize them independent of their being or Sein. These Sosein-specifying properties, are true are impossible worlds. moreover, are precisely the properties in terms of which the objects are descriptively given. This claim is captured by the so-called 1.2 Meinong and Neo-Meinongianism Characterization Principle, whose explicit formulation is due to Routley (1980: 46) but which is already implicit in Meinong 1904 (1960: 82). According to possibilism (perhaps extended to allow some fictional According to this Principle, objects, whether they exist or not, have the objects to be impossible objects), fictional objects are just like actual properties in terms of which they are given or characterized; objects, except that they exist only in various non-actual worlds. Like schematically, the thing that is characterized as being F is in fact F. Take, actual objects, they are determinate down to the last detail in worlds in for instance, the golden mountain or the round square. The golden

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mountain does not exist, yet we can say that it is both golden and a being a detective). What we might call orthodox neo-Meinongians mountain since these are the properties in terms of which the object is (Parsons 1980, Routley 1980, Jacquette 1996) maintain that Meinongian characterized; similarly, the round square is both round and square, even objects characterized in terms of such properties are concrete correlates of though it cannot exist. sets of such properties (concrete in the sense that the objects have the properties in exactly the same sense as ordinary objects have the It is commonly assumed that for Meinong fictional objects are just a subset properties). Corresponding to a set S of such properties, there is a concrete of his Meinongian objects—they are Meinongian objects that are given in object that has (at least) the properties contained in S. Corresponding to terms of the properties they have in the stories that feature them. Note that {being golden, being a mountain}, for example, there is the golden the problem for possibilism mentioned towards the end of the last section mountain, which has the properties of being a mountain and being golden disappears on this account. For, so conceived, fictional entities do in fact (as well, perhaps, as all properties P such that necessarily, whatever is a possess the properties in terms of which they are characterized in the golden mountain is P). These properties constitute the nature or essence of relevant narratives: Holmes really does have a high degree of cleverness, the golden mountain. But the golden mountain also has other properties, in higher, perhaps, than that possessed by any actual detective, and so (1) particular properties that reflect its relationship to actual objects in the might well be true. Note also that fictional entities so conceived are not world (being often thought about by Meinong, for example). completely determined with respect to their properties, unlike fictional entities conceived on the model of possibilism. Because Conan Doyle’s Fictional objects can similarly be regarded as concrete correlates of sets of stories are quiet on these matters, Holmes on the Meinongian model is not properties on such a view. Consider Holmes, a cocaine-addicted detective right-handed; nor is he left-handed; nor is he ambidextrous. He does, who lives (lived) in London at 221B Baker Street, solves many baffling however, have the property of being one of these. (One caution. Although crimes, has a friend called “Watson”, and so on (where the “and so on” this is the usual understanding of Meinong’s conception of fictional includes all the properties P such that it is true in the Holmes stories that objects, Meinong may not have endorsed it in precisely this form: his most Holmes has P). For orthodox neo-Meinongians, Holmes is a concrete, complete account of fictional objects suggests that they are higher-order albeit nonexistent, correlate of the set having those properties as members. entities, that is, entities that are constructed out of simpler entities, in the (An interesting variant of these neo-Meinongian views is Castañeda’s same sense in which, for instance, a melody is an entity constructed out of guise-theory, according to which an existent individual is a bundle of its constituent sounds (cf. Raspa 2001 and Marek 2008 [2013]). guises—particulars formed from sets of properties by a special concretizing operation—related by a relation of consubstantiation. An 1.2.2 Orthodox and unorthodox neo-Meinongianism object like the golden mountain is a guise that is not consubstantiated with any guise, not even itself, and so doesn’t exist. Castañeda takes fictional Modern versions of Meinongianism accept much of what Meinong has to objects to be bundles of guises related by a special relation of say on the topic of nonexistent objects, but depart from his account at consociation; see Castañeda 1989: ch.11.) various points. Suppose we restrict our attention to properties appropriate to physical, spatiotemporal objects (for example, being a mountain or

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While agreeing that fictional objects form a subset of Meinongian objects, Platonism about fictional objects; others take them to be work-bound roles unorthodox neo-Meinongians (see especially Zalta 1983) maintain that (Currie 1990), thereby holding a form of abstractionism that leads to a Meinongian objects in general should be conceived of as objects that have conception of fictional objects as dependent entities, like the conception a non-spatiotemporal mode of existence, and hence as abstract rather than explicitly defended by creationists (see below). concrete objects. And while they agree with the idea that for any collection of properties there is an individual that has all these properties, 1.2.3 Two kinds of properties vs. two modes of predication they do not take Meinongian objects to be correlates of sets of properties in anything like the way described by orthodox neo-Meinongians. Instead, The distinction between orthodox and unorthodox neo-Meinongians is they take them to be something like generic objects or roles, along the drawn at the metaphysical level. It is closely linked to another distinction model of Platonic attributes. (Indeed, Zalta and others have used his relevant to Meinongian objects, and so to fictional objects conceived of as theory to model a range of philosophical notions, including Platonic Meinongian objects: the distinction between kinds of properties and forms; see Zalta 1983: 41–7, and Pelletier & Zalta 2000.) Consider the modes of predication. Recall that on the one hand it seems natural to say golden mountain again. For unorthodox neo-Meinongians, this object is that fictional objects have the properties in terms of which stories not a mountain in the same sense that Mt Taranaki, for example, is a characterize them (for instance, Anna Karenina was a woman driven to mountain. The golden mountain is an abstract object, after all, and suicide by her failed affair, and Sherlock Holmes a cocaine-addicted mountains are not abstract objects. It is more akin to the object referred to detective living in London), and on the other hand not in the least natural as the U.S. President in the following statement: (Anna Karenina may have committed suicide, but it is no use looking for news of her suicide in the newspapers of the day). Now, all neo- (3) The US President faces an election every four years, Meinongians accept Meinong’s view that a Meinongian object possesses the properties in terms of which it is characterized. Following what where the subject is not a particular US President like George W. Bush or Meinong (1972 [1916]) himself came to say on the basis of a suggestion Barack Obama, but rather the role or office of US President. (While Zalta by his student Ernst Mally, some neo-Meinongians (for example, Parsons is the clearest example of an unorthodox neo-Meinongian in our sense, 1980, Jacquette 1996) take these properties to be the object’s nuclear others come close. For example, Rapaport (1978) considers M-objects (his properties, where, in general, if M is the Meinongian object correlated version of Meinongian objects) to be akin to plans rather than concrete with a set of properties S, the members of S are the object’s nuclear individuals, although unlike Zalta he does not explicitly take them to be properties. On this view, being a detective, for example, is a nuclear abstract, non-spatiotemporal objects.) property of Holmes, while being a king is a nuclear property of King Arthur. (Routley similarly talks of an object’s characterizing properties; There are other realist positions which, although admittedly not cf. Routley 1980: 507–10.) But a Meinongian object also has other Meinongian, come close to this non-orthodox form of Meinongianism. properties on this view: its extranuclear properties are those of its Some realist positions take fictional objects to be types (Wolterstorff properties that are not among its nuclear or characterizing properties. In 1980), thereby sharing with non-orthodox Meinongianism a form of the case of fictional objects, these are the properties that a fictional object

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has outside the scope of the story in which it appears—properties, we Some other neo-Meinongians claim instead that fictional and other might say, that it has in virtue of the way the world really is, not properties Meinongian objects possess the very same kind of properties that ordinary that it has from the point of view of that story. Consider, for example, the individuals possess, but possess them in a very different way. (This following two sentences: suggestion was first made by Mally (1912), but not adopted by Meinong.) When, for example, we say that Anna Karenina was a woman and Holmes (4) Mickey Mouse is a pop culture icon an inhabitant of London, we use a different mode of predication from the (5) Anna Karenina is a fictional character. one we use when we say that Marilyn Monroe was a woman or Tony Blair an inhabitant of London. On Zalta’s familiar formulation of this idea These sentences involve properties—being a pop culture icon, being a (Zalta 1983), fictional entities encode such properties while ordinary fictional character—that are being ascribed to Mickey Mouse and Anna individuals simply exemplify them. Similarly, Castañeda (1989) appeals to Karenina even though the properties do not characterize these characters an internal as well as external mode of predication of properties, while in the stories in which they appear. Mickey Mouse has the first property Rapaport (1978) talks of properties that are constituents of objects and because of the effects of his enormous popularity on pop culture, not properties that are exemplified by objects. Both Anna Karenina and because he is depicted as a pop culture icon in the Mickey Mouse stories. Marilyn Monroe, we might say, have the property of being a woman, but Anna Karenina has the second property because of her status as the the former encodes the property (the property is predicated of Anna product of creative fiction, not because of what Tolstoy’s story says about internally, or Anna has it as a constituent), while the latter exemplifies the her (according to Tolstoy’s story she is a woman, not a fictional character). property (she has it externally). These two properties are typical instances of extranuclear properties. But fictional objects also exemplify properties, perhaps some of the very (A cautionary comment. In light of what we have just said, the claim that same properties they encode or have internally (this happens whenever the properties true of a fictional object in a work count as the object’s these properties are predicated of the objects in the stories in which they nuclear properties needs qualification. It is true in the Holmes stories, for appear). Thus, what makes both (4) and (5) true is that the properties of example, that Holmes exists, even though Holmes doesn’t actually exist. being a pop culture icon and being a fictional character are exemplified, So non-existence is one of Holmes’s (extranuclear) properties despite the or possessed externally, by Mickey Mouse and Anna Karenina fact that in the stories Holmes is as much an existent object as he is a respectively. Anna Karenina therefore turns out to be internally non- detective living in London. One way of dealing with this apparent tension fictional (since it is true in the novel that she is a woman, not a fictional is to insist that Holmes does have a property like existence, but that this character), and externally fictional. property should be understood as a weaker, ‘watered-down’, version of its extranuclear counterpart, a notion first advanced by Meinong (cf. Parsons That said, note that there are important differences between the ways in 1980: 44, 184–6). We return to the notion of watered-down versions of which Zalta, on the one hand, and Castañeda and Rapaport, on the other, extranuclear properties below.) formulate these distinctions. For Zalta (1983: 12), encoding is a primitive notion which he embeds in a rigorous higher-order modal theory that is

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then used to prove the existence, and derive the properties, of abstract threatens to expose the distinction to an endless regress of ever more objects, including fictional objects. For both Castañeda (1989: 200) and ‘watered- down’ nuclear properties (cf. Voltolini 2006).) Rapaport (1978: 162), on the other hand, internal predication applies to set-correlates, and so this mode of predication can be defined in terms of It is probably fair to say that at the current stage of the debate the ‘modes set-membership: a (fictional) entity F has P internally (or: has P as a of predication’ distinction is more widely accepted, although as far as constituent) if and only if P belongs to the property set that is correlated fictional entities at least are concerned, both distinctions are taken to be with F. problematic (Everett 2013). We should remember, however, that this debate is internal to neo-Meinongianism, and that neo-Meinongianism as a On the surface, the ‘modes of predication’ distinction appears to be in a theory of fictional objects has important virtues that owe nothing to the better position to handle the data than the ‘kinds of properties’ distinction outcome of this debate. One such virtue is that the theory can account for (for more on these distinctions, see the exchange between Jacquette (1989) the idea that fictional entities necessarily have the properties that they are and Zalta (1992)). For one thing, there seems to be no workable criterion characterized as having in the relevant stories. It is hard to see how for distinguishing nuclear and extranuclear properties: some properties Holmes could not have been a detective, for example. Of course, Doyle seem to be both. Consider the property of being a fictional character. might have written a story in which someone called ‘Holmes’ was a film Being a fictional character may seem to be the prototypical candidate of director, but it is hard not to interpret this thought as simply meaning that an extranuclear property, as the case of (5) above testifies, but there may Doyle might have created another character with the same name. At the well be ‘metafictional’ narratives whose protagonists are not characterized same time, it is a plain truth of the Holmes stories that Holmes might in the usual way as flesh and blood individuals, but instead as fictional never have become a detective, that this was a purely contingent choice on characters. (The fictional character The Father in Pirandello’s Six Holmes’s part. No matter how it is formulated, neo-Meinongianism has a Characters in Search of an Author is a famous case in point.) So being a way of capturing both these intuitions. On Zalta’s formulation of the fictional character seems to qualify as both a nuclear and an extranuclear ‘modes of predication’ distinction, for example, Holmes exemplifies the property. Defenders of the ‘modes of predication’ distinction have no property of being necessarily such that he encodes both being a detective problem here: they hold that we can externally predicate being a fictional and being someone who might not have been a detective. A neo- character of both Anna Karenina and Pirandello’s The Father, while we Meinongian advocating the ‘types of property’ distinction would say that can also internally predicate this property of The Father. (It should be Holmes has the extranuclear property of being necessarily such that he pointed out that defenders of the ‘kinds of properties’-distinction have has the (nuclear) property of being a detective, but that he also has the their own way of responding to this problem: they say that in such cases (watered-down) nuclear property of being someone who might not have the nuclear property in question is the ‘watered-down’ counterpart of the been a detective. corresponding extranuclear property. On this view, Pirandello’s The Father has the extranuclear property of being a fictional character as well as its On the basis of the essentialist idea that fictional objects necessarily have nuclear ‘watered-down’ correlate. But apart from the seemingly ad hoc the properties that they are characterized as having in the relevant stories, character of this response, it is faced by a more serious problem: it neo-Meinongians have suggested a simple criterion for the identity of

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fictional entities, one which can be traced back to the criterion for the Castañeda’s variant of neo-Meinongianism, fictional objects are systems identity of Meinongian objects in general: If x has all the same nuclear of set-correlates, built up, or put together, by a fiction maker (cf. properties as y (alternatively, if x and y internally possess the same Castañeda 1989: ch.11). But if this implies that the activity of fiction properties), then x = y (cf., for example, Parsons 1980: 28, 188). making is essential to the identity of fictional objects, we no longer have a pure neo-Meinongianism but a view that is closer to the ‘creationist’ view Despite the apparent attractions of such a view, there is an evident described in the next section.) problem facing the underlying thought that once you have a certain collection of properties you ipso facto have a fictional entity. (Note that Even if the idea of a set-correlate helps to solve this particular problem, it (most) neo-Meinongians accept this thought, since they take fictional seems that no neo-Meinongian theory is able to block another problem objects to be a subset of the class of objects generated on the basis of that stems from letting the identity of such an object depend on the something like Meinong’s Principle of the Freedom of Assumption (cf. properties in terms of which it is characterized. Take Jorge Luis Borges’s Meinong 1916 [1972: 282]), the principle that for any collection of famous story of a man called Pierre Menard who happens to write a text (nuclear) properties there is a Meinongian object that has those that is word for word identical with Miguel Cervantes’s Don Quixote. properties.) But generating fictional entities is surely not quite that easy. Assume, in this variant of Borges’s story, that Menard and Cervantes are Take an arbitrary collection of properties, say {weighing more than 10kgs, unknown to each other, even though they live in the very same town; one bearing the name “Oscar”, having a passion for garden gloves, being a can even suppose that they are neighbors. In that case, the Borges story devotee of the number 17}. The mere existence of this set of properties is describes a situation in which one and the same set of properties not enough to generate a fictional object, Oscar, with these properties. corresponds to different fictional objects: Cervantes’s Don Quixote and More has to happen. (Kripke (2013: 70–1) mentions the historical case of Pierre Menard’s Don Quixote are two distinct fictional characters who, the Biblical term ‘Moloch’, which interpreters of the Bible took to be a nonetheless, share all the properties they have in the respective works. name for a mythical pagan god, whereas modern philology suggests it was (The ‘Menard’ case was first mentioned in this context by Lewis (1978: in fact used as a common noun either for kings or for human sacrifices. If 39). As a problem for the identity of fictional objects, it was then exploited modern philology is right and Bible-interpreters were confused, there is no by Fine (1982: 107); see also Thomasson (1999: 7, 56).) In this case, mythical god Moloch. This is so even though we can agree that there is a claiming that fictional objects are set-correlates rather than mere property collection of properties that past interpreters mistakenly understood the sets does not solve the problem, for we have only one set-correlate, yet Bible to assign to such a god.) two distinct objects.

Neo-Meinongians have tried to circumvent this problem by stressing that Intuitively speaking, the problem is clear. Neo-Meinongianism in all its Meinongian objects, including fictional objects, are not sets of properties, varieties tends to sketch a Platonistic picture of a fictional entity, either as but correlates of such sets. Whether this move enables neo-Meinongians something akin to a Platonic attribute, or as a correlate of something else to avoid admitting objects like Oscar and Moloch into the overall domain that we tend to describe in Platonic terms—a set of properties. Neo- of fictional objects will depend on how this move is understood. (In Meinongianism thus sees a fictional object as something that pre-dates the

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story-telling activities that intuitively bring fictional objects into being. To constant generic dependence accounts for its continued existence or see the tension between these conceptions, note that we often speak of persistence. Such an account of the persistence of fictional objects seems fictional objects as the creations of story-tellers or of the human mind as intuitive as the account of their generation. Not only do we say that more generally. Neo-Meinongianism, so it seems, leaves no such room for some given fictional object was created at a certain point of time, but we story-tellers. might also describe it as having a certain age (Hamlet, we might point out, is now over 400 years old). 1.3 Creationism Note that creationism thus characterized earns its keep from the The intuition that story-tellers have some kind of creative role to play is ‘obviousness’ of the thought that authors somehow create fictional accounted for by so called artifactualist, or creationist, accounts of characters through the creation of fictional works in which they appear. fictional entities (see Searle 1979, Salmon 1998, Thomasson 1999, Language seems to support this thought: we routinely hear statements like Voltolini 2006; the position was also defended in Kripke 2013, and “Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most complex creations”. It is on the elements of the position are found in van Inwagen’s (1977) theory of basis of this thought that creationists then hypothesize that fictional objects fictional objects as posits of literary criticism; Ingarden 1931 is a literally are the creations of their authors: not concrete creations, clearly, significant historical forerunner). According to such accounts, fictional so therefore non-concrete, abstract creations. But this move is far from objects are artifacts since they come into being once they are conceived by innocent. Yagisawa (2001), for example, argues that creationism conflicts their authors; to that extent, they are authorial creations. Moreover, they sharply with other seemingly obvious thoughts, for example the are abstract entities, just as unorthodox neo-Meinongians believe. Unlike nonexistence datum that fictional characters like Hamlet don’t exist (for a Platonic abstracta, however, they not only have a beginning in time, but response, see Goodman 2004). At an even more fundamental level, Brock they are also dependent entities since they depend on other entities for (2010) argues that the creationist’s appeal to creation is explanatorily void, their existence. (Roughly speaking, an entity O existentially depends on leaving more questions than answers. another entity Oʹ just if O couldn’t exist without Oʹ existing (cf. Thomasson 1999). For a more discriminating account, one that avoids the Creationists themselves claim that the appeal to creation does solve a consequence that everything existentially depends on necessary existents number of significant problems that afflict other metaphysical theories. like natural numbers, see Fine 1994.) More specifically, fictional objects There is, for example, no mythical god Moloch, for nobody has created depend historically rigidly on the authors who create them (necessarily, if such an object by gathering various properties and embedding them in a O comes into being at t, then the author(s) who creates O exists at some certain narrative. And although they share all the properties attributed to time tʹ before t) and constantly generically on the literary works that them in the respective renditions of Don Quixote, there are two Don feature them (necessarily, if O goes on existing, then some literary work W Quixotes, Cervantes’s and Menard’s, not just one, because there were two or other featuring O exists during O’s time of existence) (see Thomasson utterly independent acts of authorial generation (cf. Voltolini 2006: 32ff.). 1999 for an extended discussion of such dependencies). While historical It is not clear, however, how creationists can deal with a related problem rigid dependence accounts for a fictional object’s coming into being, that affects their theory, the problem of indiscriminable fictional objects

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(Kroon 2015). Intuitively, there were thousands of fictional dwarves who purportedly generated in this way? What are the identity conditions for took part in Tolkien’s War between the Dwarves and Orcs, without fictional objects? Creationists typically do not think that a fictional object Tolkien’s engaging in thousands of acts of dwarf-creation. (In response to possesses the properties that characterize it in the story in which it this worry, some creationists have denied that there are such characters; appears. A fictional object simply has those properties according to the see, for example, Voltolini 2006: 209–11.) story. It is not true of Holmes, for instance, that ‘he’ (or it) is a detective— only physical objects, not an abstract artifact, can be a detective. What is It is evident, then, that creationism is not without its problems. Perhaps the true of Holmes is that ’he’ is a detective according to the Holmes stories most significant ones have to do with the nature of the creative process (equally, Holmes is male according to those stories, and so deserving of and the relation between the creative process and the identity of fictional the masculine pronoun “he”). In general, for creationists the only objects. It seems, for example, that what comes into existence on the properties that fictional objects genuinely possess are the properties that above account of the generating process (which talks of authors’ neo-Meinongians would call extranuclear or take to be externally conceiving of their literary creations) is not a fictional object as such, but predicated: properties like being a fictional detective or being Doyle’s rather a (mere) intentional object, the target of a certain authorial thought. creation or even being a detective according to the Holmes stories (cf. A mere intentional object is not yet a fictional object, as Thomasson Thomasson 1999). The approach thus fails to account for the idea, (1999: 89) agrees, so what makes it one? Does it become one by being mentioned earlier, that there must be a sense in which fictional objects able to be ‘shared’ by more than one person through appearing in a text actually have the properties that characterize them in the relevant stories. (maybe not a physical copy but one stored in memory)? Or is there a more discriminating criterion to single out which intentional objects are fictional In addition, the restricted nature of such properties makes it hard to see objects? how to individuate a fictional entity. Thomasson gives sufficient identity conditions for fictional entities within a literary work: x and y are the same This question is perhaps best answered by giving a somewhat different fictional object F if x and y are ascribed exactly the same properties in the account of the generating process. Thus, some creationists (Schiffer 1996, work (1999: 63). But what do we say in the case of fictional objects that 2003; Thomasson 2003a,b) say that a fictional object comes into being as appear in different works? Thomasson admits that in this case one can an abstract artifact not when an author first conceives of it, but only once a only provide a necessary condition: x and y are the same fictional object certain make-believe process has come to an end, namely, the process in only if the author of the second work W ′ is competently acquainted with x which someone—typically, a story-teller—pretends that there is an of the previous work W, and intends to import x into W ′ as y (1999: 67). individual who is such-and-such and does so-and-so. It is disputable The reason why she thinks this cannot be a sufficient condition is that, no whether this provides a sufficient condition for ficta generation; perhaps matter what the author’s intentions are, he does not succeed in importing x something else is needed, such as a reflexive stance on the very make- (an entity that appears in W) into W ′ as y if he attributes properties to y believe process itself (Voltolini 2006, 2015a). But whatever the right that are too radically different from the properties that were attributed to x account, another question remains: even if we agree on the nature of the in W (1999: 68). (There are other cases that show even more clearly how process-type that gives rise to a fictional object, what is the thing that is authorial intention can be thwarted. Thus, consider a case of a fusion of

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characters, in which an author intends to import into W ′ two characters x long time, the battlefield between those two parties has been ordinary and y from a previous work W as a single character z. Clearly, given the language. Realists have always been fascinated by the fact that there are transitivity of identity, z is not identical with either x or y, so the author sentences in language that seem to commit one to fictional entities. fails in her attempt. Analogous problems arise in the converse situation of Antirealists have instead insisted that such appearances are deceptive: character fission: cf. Voltolini 2012.) whenever a sentence seems to commit one to fictional entities, one can always provide a paraphrase which has the same truth-conditions as the To conclude this discussion of the metaphysics of fictional objects, it is original sentence but is not so committed. Realists in turn try to show worth noting that neo-Meinongian and creationist theories seem to suffer either that those paraphrases are inadequate or that there are still further from complementary defects. On the one hand, neo-Meinongians provide sentences for which no adequate paraphrases can be found. Antirealists exact identity criteria for fictional objects, but these criteria are clearly will reply that, despite appearances, these sentences can also be insufficient in that they do not take into account the fact that such objects paraphrased in noncommittal terms; and so the game goes on. are products of the human mind. On the other hand, creationists do account for this fact, but they only provide relatively non-specific identity 2.1.1 Russell’s anti-realism criteria for such entities. Those theories are normally taken to be incompatible, for they appeal to different metaphysical models—broadly Frege (1892) is often taken to be the first champion of fictional antirealism speaking, a Platonic model as opposed to a constructivist one. This claim within analytic philosophy, in so far as he held that in direct (gerade) of incompatibility should not be taken as definitive, however; there may contexts such as “Odysseus came ashore” a fictional name has a sense but well be ways in which the two theories, or perhaps the most promising no reference. But Frege also held that in oblique (ungerade) contexts such elements of each theory, can somehow be combined (for recent attempts to as “John believed that Odysseus came ashore” and “The author of the go in such a direction, cf. Zalta 2000, Voltolini 2006). Odyssey says that Odysseus came ashore” this sense becomes the new referent of the fictional name. If senses of this type can model the notion 2. The Ontology of Fictional Entities of a fictional entity, then Frege can be construed as a kind of fictional realist (Künne 1990); otherwise, he can’t. (Parsons (1982) is doubtful; The metaphysical question about fictional entities asked what such entities Zalta may be more sympathetic, since he thinks his abstract objects can are like, should there be any. We now turn to the ontological question, model both the notion of sense (Zalta 2001) and the idea of a fictional which simply asks whether there are any such entities. object.)

2.1 Semantical Arguments for and Against Realism The modern form of the realism-antirealism debate, however, did not originate with anything Frege said on the matter, but with a dispute Obviously the important division at the ontological level lies between between Meinong (1904) and Russell (1905a). Consider a sentence like: those who believe that there are fictional entities—fictional realists—and those who believe that there no such entities—fictional antirealists. For a (6) Apollo is young.

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According to Meinong, considered here as the paradigmatic realist, the (7) There is at least one sun-god very meaningfulness of this statement commits one to a (broadly) fictional entity—the deity of the Greek myths—on the grounds, roughly, that the is false. Far from making (6) meaningless, the absence of a denotation in thought expressed by the statement is directed at this entity, and so this Russellian sense when taken in conjunction with Russell’s eliminative requires there to be such an entity. The statement itself expresses a truth strategy shows (6) to be false. Russell thought that his theory of definite rather than a falsehood about this entity. For Russell, however, descriptions allowed him to show that all fictional names lacked appearances in this case were deceptive. First of all, he thought that denotation in this way, and that sentences containing fictional names were “Apollo”, like any other ordinary proper name, is short-hand for a definite therefore true or false rather than meaningless. description—say, “the sun-god”. Secondly, following his discovery of the 2.1.2 Metafictional sentences and “in the fiction” operators theory of definite descriptions Russell held that a sentence containing a definite description has to be analyzed in terms of another sentence in Let us accept, for argument’s sake, that the adoption of Russell’s theory of which the description is eliminated in favor of quantifiers, predicates, descriptions allows us to avoid ontological commitment to such ‘bizarre’ logical connectives, and genuine proper names. What (6) says on this entities as nonexistent fictional and mythological entities. (Although this is account is given by a paraphrase in which the definite description for a widely accepted view, there is in fact reason to doubt it: David Kaplan which “Apollo” is short-hand, namely “the sun-god”, has disappeared on argues that it is “one of [the] virtues” of Russell’s theory that the theory is analysis: “essentially neutral with respect to ontological commitment”, that it (6R) There is at least one sun-god and at most one sun-god and every permits descriptions to denote nonexistent entities if there are such entities sun-god is young. (Kaplan 2005: 975–6; cf. also Voltolini 2006: 139ff.). Even if Russell’s theory is ontologically potent in this way, however, the theory as (Put more simply: There is a unique sun-god, and he is young.) formulated faces a simple and seemingly devastating objection: many intuitively true sentences come out as false on their Russellian Thirdly, there is no longer even the appearance of a singular term paraphrases. Consider sentence (6) again. If we use Russell’s theory to (“Apollo”) that must designate something for the paraphrase to be dispense with an entity like Apollo, it follows that (6) is false, insofar as meaningful. In fact, Russell saw that this result showed the original its Russellian paraphrase is false. This is widely acknowledged to be statement to be both meaningful (because able to be analyzed in this way) counterintuitive. Presented with (6), most would say that it is intuitively and false (given obvious facts). Say that a definite description has a true, unlike, say: Russellian denotation when the Russellian conditions for the description to have a denotation are fulfilled; that is, when there is at least one (8) Apollo is a rock-star. individual satisfying the relevant predicate, but no more than one. Then we can say that the definite description for which “Apollo” is short-hand As it turns out, the antirealist who follows Russell has an easy way of does not have a Russellian denotation since (6R)’s first conjunct, namely: circumventing this problem. She will point out that the reason why (6), but

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not (8), seems to be true is that in the Greek myth things are exactly as (6) Let us now go back to the amendment to Russellianism we were says. The impression that (6) is true can then easily be accommodated by considering. On the view being discussed, an expression like “according to taking (6) to be elliptical for a longer sentence, namely: the Greek myth” is, qua intensional operator, a circumstance-shifting operator, one that shifts the circumstance of evaluation of the sentence (6I) According to the Greek myth, Apollo is young. following it. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that a sentence of the form “According to story S, p” is true in the actual world if and only if “p” is Here the locution “according to the Greek myth” works as an intensional true at the closest possible worlds to the actual world in which S is true (cf. operator, whereas the sentence following that operator, which is nothing Lewis 1978). Now, any sentence that this operator embeds has to be but (6) itself, has to be analyzed in Russellian fashion: analyzed in Russellian terms if it contains a singular term. In that case, a (6IR) According to the Greek myth, there is a unique sun-god and he is sentence like (6I) is true in the actual world if and only if (6), i.e., (6R), is young. true at the closest possible worlds in which the Apollo-myth is true. Insofar as (6R) is indeed true at such worlds, the singular term in question (A caveat. It would be more proper to say that it is a use of (6) that is taken —“Apollo”, that is, “the sun-god”—has a (Russellian) denotation in those to be elliptical for (6IR), rather than (6) itself. For (6) is a case of a worlds, even though it lacks a denotation in the actual world. Hence, we fictional sentence, namely a sentence that could easily occur in the body of again get the result Russell desired: the whole sentence is true although the a narrative (a myth, in this case). Such sentences have a use on which they relevant singular term has no actual denotation but only a possible one. have merely fictional truth-conditions, that is, truth-conditions from the Thus, no commitment to fictional entities arises out of the truth of that stand-point of the narrative or work of fiction, and on this kind of use even sentence. their truth-values are merely fictional. Following Evans (1982), who here borrows Quinean terminology, we may call this the conniving use of such Or rather, no such commitment arises from Russell’s theory on its own. If sentences: the use on which the utterer is engaged in pretense or make- we assume Lewis’s modal realism, then saying as we did that a description believe. But there is another use of the same sentences—what Evans calls has a possible denotation entails an ontological commitment to fictional the non-conniving use—on which we take them to have real truth- objects as possibilia. Normally, however, this intensionalist approach is conditions, hence real truth-values: the kind of use on which we take (8), taken in an antirealist sense (cf., e.g., Lamarque & Olsen 1994; Orenstein unlike (6), to express a real falsehood. A case in point would be an 2003; Rorty 1982). For the Russellian, central to this antirealist utterance of (8) in response to a request for information about Apollo in an understanding is the fact that a sentence like (6I) should be given a de exam on Greek mythology. We shall call sentences of the form (6I), even dicto, not a de re, reading: what is said to be true in the fiction is a certain reshaped as (6IR), internal metafictional sentences, for they purport to say dictum or proposition, not the claim, about some given thing or res x, that how things stand in, or according to, a certain fiction. They are meant as x has a certain property. On Russell’s way of understanding this sentences that capture the non-conniving use of fictional sentences like distinction, the description “the sun-god” for which “Apollo” is short-hand (6).) should be interpreted as having a secondary, not a primary, occurrence in the sentence, or, which is the same, the existential quantifier occurring in

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the Russellian paraphrase of the sentence should be assigned narrow, not way, and their truth really does commit us to fictional characters (see, for wide, scope. (6I), that is, should be read as: “According to the Apollo- example, Schiffer 1996 and Thomasson 2003b). myth, there is exactly one sun-god, and he is young” rather than as “There is a unique sun-god, and according to the myth he is young”. The reason One possible antirealist solution to this problem—although not one that for this is evident. If we adopt the wide-scope reading of the quantifier, the Russellians themselves have promoted—is to invoke a kind of fictionalism sentence turns out to be false, not true (given that there is no sun-god); and about fictional characters. On this strategy, sentences like (4) and (5) it is the truth of a sentence like (6I) that the Russellian aims to capture. should be thought of as implicitly prefixed by another intensional “in the fiction” operator, so that even in this case the impression of reference to a Suppose that the Russellian amendment works for fictional sentences on fictional entity would turn out to be baseless. In cases of this type, the their non-conniving use. Intuitively, however, there are many sentences operator would appeal not to a story but rather to the realist presumption that talk of fictional characters even though they do not even implicitly that such an impression seems to support. The suggestion, then, is that mention stories. Let us call these external metafictional sentences (some external metafictional sentences are to be read as implicitly prefixed by an other commentators talk of “extrafictive” or “critical” sentences). (4) and operator like “according to the fiction of realism” or “according to the (5) above are typical examples. Clearly, (4) and (5) cannot be taken as realist’s hypothesis”: elliptical for internal metafictional sentences such as: (4F) According to the realist’s hypothesis, Mickey Mouse is a pop (4I) According to the Disney stories, Mickey Mouse is a pop culture culture icon. icon (5F) According to the realist’s hypothesis, Anna Karenina is a fictional (5I) According to Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina is a fictional character. character. Once external metafictional sentences are read this way, any apparent For unlike (4) and (5), the latter sentences are simply false even on their commitment to fictional entities seems to disappear, provided once again de dicto reading (a point already stressed by Lewis (1978: 38)): Mickey that the resulting complex sentences are read de dicto (for such a move, Mouse has the status of a pop culture icon in the actual world, not in the see Brock 2002, Phillips 2000). Disney stories; and according to Anna Karenina, Anna is a woman, not a fictional character. Many realists, especially creationists, have concluded 2.1.3 The descriptivist problem for theories of fictional names that sentences of this kind really do establish that we are committed to fictional characters. They argue that even though fictional sentences on The appeal to intensional “in the fiction” operators is a well-known their non-conniving use can be paraphrased as internal metafictional strategy for dealing with the apparent truth of statements like (6), and sentences on their de dicto reading and thus do not commit us to fictional because it is available to Russell this may seem like good news for characters, external metafictional sentences cannot be paraphrased in this Russell’s antirealism, especially given the way the strategy might be extended to external meta-fictional statements like (4) and (5). But such an

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amended version of Russellianism faces a problem already faced by the A particularly stark form of this dilemma is faced by what is perhaps the unamended version of Russell’s view. If such a Russellianism is to provide most widely accepted post-Kripkean alternative to descriptivism, namely the correct analysis of sentences like (6), one has to assume that proper Millianism, which holds that what a name contributes semantically to the names are synonymous with definite descriptions. This is because the propositions expressed through the use of sentences containing the name is strategy used in arriving at a sentence like (6IR) involves replacing a just the name’s referent. The combination of Millianism and the antirealist proper name (“Apollo”) with an equivalent definite description (“the sun- view that fictional names like “Apollo” lack reference (and so make no god”). But there are well-known, and widely accepted, arguments against contribution to the expression of propositions) appears to imply that such a descriptivist view of proper names (Donnellan 1972, Kripke 1972 sentences like (6I) don’t express any proposition, let alone true [1980], 2013). In particular, descriptions of the sort that speakers or propositions. There is now a lively industry devoted to finding Millianism- communities standardly associate with a name might simply fail to fit friendly solutions to this quandary. Some Millians argue that what we see what the name really refers to (in the actual world and relative to other as meaningful and even true concerns what is implicated rather than possible worlds). One response to this objection as far as fictional names semantically expressed by such sentences (e.g., Taylor 2000). Others like “Apollo”, “Holmes”, etc., are concerned is to reject descriptivism appeal to gappy or unfilled propositions. These are proposition-like about ordinary names but endorse it for fictional names (see, for example, entities expressed by sentences containing empty names that can fail to be Currie 1990: 158–162). On the surface, however, this looks like an true because of the gaps (see Braun 1993, 2005; Adams et al. 1997). Both unpromising move: for one thing, it is possible to attempt to engage in Braun and Adams et al. argue that such gappiness doesn’t prevent internal conversation about Apollo, believing he is real, before coming to the metafictional sentences such as “In the Holmes stories, Holmes is a realization that he is merely a mythological figure, a possibility that is hard detective” from expressing truths. But they disagree about external to explain if ordinary names and fictional names have entirely different metafictional sentences like “Holmes is a fictional character”, with Adams sorts of meanings. et al. insisting that these too can be true despite the names being non- referring, and Braun (2005) arguing that such statements call for a This descriptivist problem presents itself as a potential challenge to any creationist position on which the names in such sentences refer to genuine, antirealist view that endorses a de dicto reading of sentences like (6I) and created fictional entities. (4F) / (5F). For how else, if not in terms of some kind of descriptivist view of names like Russell’s, are we to understand such de dicto readings? If Millians are not the only ones to have grappled with the implications that names are instead taken to be directly referential—that is, if they are taken the Kripke-Donnellan attack on descriptivism has for the semantics of to be terms that do not secure their reference by means of descriptive fictional names. Michael Devitt, for example, another early critic of meanings—there seems to be no room left for a de dicto as opposed to a descriptivism, has used the problem of fictional and other empty names to de re reading of such sentences, and, consequently, no room for the argue against Millianism and in favor of his version of a causal-historical thought that sentences containing (allegedly) empty names like “Apollo” theory of reference (cf. Devitt 1989). And Mark Sainsbury argues in even have truth-conditions. Sainsbury 2005***not in bib* that names, including fictional names, have singular but non-descriptive meanings that can be specified in a Davidson-

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style truth theory whose background logic is a Negative Free Logic (that entity referred to as “Apollo” in that context is young in that world) and is, a logic that counts simple or atomic sentences containing empty names has also a fictional truth-value (considered as uttered in that context, the as false). Given the role assigned to Negative Free Logic, it is scarcely sentence is true, for in the world of that context—the world of the Greek surprising that the greatest challenge for such a framework is again the myth—there is a god, Apollo, who is indeed young). Outside that context, problem of external metafictional sentences such as (4): however—that is, in a real context where there is no pretense that the Greek myth is fact—a name like “Apollo” refers to nothing. No (4) Mickey Mouse is a pop culture icon. endorsement of descriptivism is here required. Quite simply, if the singular terms in question are directly referential (currently the most popular view The latter has the appearance of an atomic sentence and so should, of names), then a sentence containing a fictional proper name will have no implausibly, count as false on such a logic. In Sainsbury 2009 and 2010, real truth-conditions, hence no real truth-value, since any such term is Sainsbury uses the idea of presupposition- / acceptance-relative truth to really empty. Take the case of “Apollo”, which on this view has no deal with such problems, an idea that is related to ideas found in the referent when uttered in a real, non-fictional context of utterance. popular pretense-theoretic approach to fictional names. That is the Assuming it is a directly referential term, it makes no truth-conditional approach we turn to next. contribution to sentences that contain it. Hence, when uttered in a real 2.1.4 Pretense Theory context (6) will have no truth-conditions, hence no truth-value. (The kernel of this proposal is in Walton 1990; see Recanati 2000 and Everett For the antirealist, the semantics of names presents an important hurdle to 2013 for refinements.) attempts to accommodate the truth of internal and external metafictional So far, so good. Remember, however, that the intuition that a sentence like sentences featuring fictional names. Such difficulties have suggested the (6) is really, not just fictionally, true—hence, that it has real, not just need to look in a completely different direction. As we saw before, it is fictional, truth-conditions—is a powerful one. How can a pretense important to acknowledge the role of pretense in fictional talk and writing. antirealist account for this intuition? A fictional sentence has a conniving use when it is uttered within the context of a certain pretense involving the telling of a story. Call such a As a first attempt, a pretense antirealist may try to combine the virtues of context a fictional context. Note that a sentence considered as uttered in the pretense account with the virtues of the intensionalist approach. That such a context does in a sense carry ontological commitments: it carries is, she may first stick to the idea that on its non-conniving use a sentence pretend ontological commitments. For within the context of the relevant like (6) has to be taken as elliptical for an internal metafictional sentence pretense, the singular terms involved do refer to things. For instance, to like (6I). But she may also insist that the “according to the story” operator utter (6) in the context of telling the Greek myth is to utter a sentence in should be taken as a context-shifting operator, not simply (like the familiar which, from the perspective of the relevant pretense, the name “Apollo” intensional operator “It is necessary that”) as a circumstance-shifting refers to a god. Consequently, the sentence has fictional truth-conditions in operator. That is, she may insist that it is an operator that shifts not only that context (the sentence is true in the world of that context just if the the circumstances of evaluation of the sentence it embeds, but also the

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context relevant for the interpretation of such sentence—typically, the sense in which (9) is really true by reporting that the claim expressed by context of its utterance. More precisely, if we take a fictional sentence “p” (9) is true according to In Search of Lost Time. On the above pretense- on its non-conniving use as elliptical for “According to the story S, p”, intensionalist approach, we might formulate this suggestion as: then “p” so understood is true in the actual world if and only if “p”, taken as uttered in the context of the story S (that is, a fictional context), is true (9PI) According to In Search of Lost Time, for a long time I used to go to in the world of that context. bed early.

The antirealist merits of this account are clear. It allows a proper name like However, this equivalence clearly does not work. Assuming that you are “Apollo” to be both genuinely empty, carrying no commitment to any the person who utters (9PI), the sentence says that you used to go to bed fictional entity, but also genuinely non-descriptive. The embedded early for a long time in the imaginary world of Proust’s Recherche. But sentence containing the name ((6), say) is understood as being uttered in a this is false, since you are not an inhabitant of this world. fictional context, and in that context the name directly refers to an It may be possible to obviate Kaplan’s problem in some way, for instance individual, the individual existing in the world of the relevant pretense. by claiming that the context-shift affects the whole sentence, not just the Since this reference occurs only in that fictional context, not in a real embedded one (Recanati 2000); but then one has to show how such context, the name really does remain empty. (This proposal can be traced sentences may nonetheless have real truth-conditions, and not merely back to Walton 1990; see also Adams et al. 1997.) fictional ones. Or the problem may turn out to be restricted to the case of Despite these virtues, the suggestion faces a well-known criticism. Kaplan embedded indexicals, or even certain types of indexicals. Predelli, for calls such context-shifting operators ‘monsters’, and claims that “none can example, has argued that there are examples of discourse about fiction be expressed in English (without sneaking in a quotation device)” (1989a: using modal and temporal indexicals that are best analyzed in terms of 511). In the case of indexicals, for example, “no operator can control … such context-shifting Kaplanesque ‘monsters’ (Predelli 2008). the indexicals within its scope, because they will simply leap out of its Be that as it may, one might try to simplify the pretense-theoretical scope to the front of the operator” (1989a: 510). To see how this worry proposal by reversing the order of explanation. Rather than taking the applies to a fictional sentence containing an indexical, consider the famous fictional sentence on its non-conniving use as elliptical for an internal first line of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time: metafictional sentence, we might take the internal metafictional sentence (9) For a long time I used to go to bed early. to be really true just when the fictional sentence (on its non-conniving use) is really true. We might, that is, follow Walton in treating the fictional Within the fictional context mobilized by Proust’s telling his story, the first sentence as “primary”; cf. 1990: 401–2). It is in fact relatively easy to person pronoun “I” refers to the person narrating the events that constitute discern the sense in which the fictional sentence on its non-conniving use the imaginary world of Proust’s Recherche—an individual who exists only is really true. It is really true just in case there is a pretense of a certain in that world, not the actual world. Now, suppose we want to capture the kind relative to which the sentence on its conniving use is fictionally true.

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In short, the fictional sentence is really true on its non-conniving use if and terms. The game in question is instead one where facts about the important only if it is fictionally true (for this formulation, see Crimmins 1998: 2–8). place occupied in popular culture by the Mickey Mouse stories are what (Walton’s 1990 own formulation of the point is weaker, for it gives the make it fictionally true in the game that Mickey Mouse has the special proposal a pragmatic twist: by being fictionally true, a sentence may be property of being a pop culture icon. To that extent the game is an taken to assert, or to convey, a real truth. See also Everett 2013.) unofficial one.

One advantage of such an antirealist move is that it can be used for both On this account, then, external metafictional sentences enjoy no special fictional sentences and external metafictional sentences. For Walton, what status; in particular, they don’t provide us with a reason for assuming the distinguishes the two cases is simply the kind of pretense that makes the existence of fictional entities. Our final example returns us to Pirandello’s relevant sentence fictionally true. In the former case, the game of make- Six Characters in Search of an Author. Consider an utterance of: believe that the relevant fictional context singles out is an authorized one; that is, it is a game authorized by what serves as a prop in that game (in (10) The Father is a fictional character. the case of a literary game of make-believe, the text written or narrated by On the one hand, this is an external metafictional sentence of the very the storyteller); the prop dictates how things go in the world of that game. same kind as (5), a sentence that the speaker uses to describe the In the latter case, the relevant game of make-believe is an unofficial, albeit metaphysical status of one of the protagonists of Pirandello’s work. On the standard, one (1990: 417); in this case, there may be no constraints—none, other hand, (10) may also be taken as a fictional sentence, since at least, provided by the prop—that dictate how things stand in the world Pirandello’s play is characterized by the fact that its protagonists are not of that game (cf. Walton 1990: 51, 406, 409). ordinary concrete individuals but fictional characters. In such a case, the Take (6) again. In order for (6) to be fictionally true, and hence for it to be sentence has two distinct non-conniving uses. On its use as a fictional really true on its non-conniving use, the world of the Greek myth must sentence it is allegedly equivalent to: contain a god (Apollo) who is young. This is a consequence of the fact (10ʹ) According to Six Characters in Search of an Author, the Father is a that this is the way the myth is told. The myth-telling functions as a prop fictional character. constraining how the “Apollo” game of make-believe has to be played; a person who makes believe that Apollo is a rock-star is not playing the In this case, (10) is really true in so far as it is fictionally true relative to a game correctly, or is perhaps playing another game. But now consider (4). game authorized by the work Six Characters in Search of an Author. In In order for an utterance of (4) to be fictionally true, hence for it to be the other case, it is really true in so far as it is fictionally true relative to an really true on its non-conniving use, it must allude to a game in which unofficial game in which some entities count as ‘real people’ and some as there is a fictional character named “Mickey Mouse” who has the special ‘fictional characters’, with the Father correctly singled out as one of the property of being a pop culture icon—a ‘Meinongian’ pretense, as latter because ‘he’ originated in a work of fiction. Recanati (2000) calls it. Now, such a game is not constrained by any text; there is no Mickey Mouse story that describes Mickey Mouse in these

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Walton’s pretense-based version of antirealism has been very influential (12) Sancho Panza is a model for at least one character in every novel, (for a development of the view, see Everett 2013), but it has also attracted apart from the novel Don Quixote, in which he himself appears, a great deal of criticism. Some have doubted that a sentence’s fictional truth on its conniving use can ground a sense in which it is really true on but it also legitimizes an inference to: its non-conniving use (cf. Voltolini 2006), a move that is crucial to his (13) If no character appears in every novel, then some character is antirealism. Others have doubted that Walton’s appeal to unofficial games modelled on another character of make-believe can yield appropriate antirealist paraphrases for metafictional sentences in general, perhaps because these critics deny that (cf. van Inwagen 2000: 243–4). such sentences involve either explicit or implicit appeals to pretense (Thomasson 1999, van Inwagen 2003***not in bib*). Now, it is certainly true that insisting on the need to preserve the validity of the above inferences in any account of external metafictional sentences 2.1.5 Quantificational arguments for realism is a good antidote to the antirealist ‘paraphrase’ strategy. For there is no guarantee that validity is preserved once the above sentences are Of course, to show that some antirealist paraphrases of fictional sentences paraphrased (say, in a pretense-theoretic manner à la Walton). This do not work does not mean that no such paraphrases will work. Perhaps it suggests that such antirealist paraphrases may not capture the meaning of is always possible to find new paraphrases that do not raise any of the the original sentences, leaving the field to realist construals of such problems hitherto pointed out, whether such paraphrases are based on a sentences (cf. again van Inwagen (ibid.); for Walton’s response, see new version of the pretense-theoretic approach or on some other approach. Walton 1990: 416ff.). To take this point into account, some realists have pursued a different linguistically-based strategy. To be, as Quine said, is to be the value of a Still, this may not be enough to show that antirealism should be rejected. variable (Quine 1948). Hence if we can locate existentially quantified For while existential sentences like (11) that quantify over fictional discourse involving quantification over fictional entities—either directly, characters are common enough, there are other existential claims with the as external metafictional sentences that can themselves be used as same logical features as (11) that philosophers are far less likely to take as premises to derive other metafictional sentences, or indirectly, as a result evidence of realism. Thus consider: of a valid inference from external metafictional sentences—then it seems (14) While there is an imaginary emperor who Nathan Salmon that such ontological commitment is unavoidable. In this connection, imagined took over France, there certainly is no imaginary consider the sentence: emperor who Nathan Salmon imagined took over Canada. (11) There is a fictional character who, for every novel, either appears This sentence is suggested by Nathan Salmon’s account of allegedly in that novel or is a model for a character who does. empty names in Salmon 1998. Salmon suggests that while fictional names Not only can such a sentence be inferred from, say: in general stand for abstract created fictional entities, certain other terms

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are thoroughly non-referring or empty. In this connection, he contemplates us to the existence of a certain creature of the imagination, one who has the possibility of there being an armed fanatic who has just taken over the the property of being a trick of the light (cf. Kroon 1996: 186). Many government of France by declaring himself emperor, and then stipulates would resist such an easy road to realism about creatures of the that the name “Nappy” is to refer to whoever is the present emperor of imagination. France if there is such a person (as there would be if this imaginative scenario were actual), and to nothing if there isn’t. Such a name, he thinks, 2.2 Ontological Arguments for and Against Realism is clearly empty. Note, however, that in Salmon’s imaginative scenario, The problems that one thus encounters in trying to let semantic-linguistic (15) Nappy is a French emperor arguments ground a commitment to fictional objects give one reason to think that there is no semantical shortcut available to the realist. That is to is true, but that there is no similar scenario involving a present emperor of say, if a realist wants to claim that our prima facie commitment to fictional Canada. A sentence like (14) is a natural way of recording this fact. But entities is justified, she has to provide a genuine ontological argument to now we face a problem. As Caplan (2004) points out, taking (11) as an that effect. evidence for the genuine existence of what van Inwagen calls creatures of fiction suggests that we should, by parity of reasoning, take (14) as In her 1999 book, Thomasson tried to provide just such an argument. Her evidence for the genuine existence of sui generis creatures of the argument claims that we cannot reject fictional objects if we admit imagination. Or, to put the point the other way round, if we don’t think fictional works: given that fictional objects and fictional works belong to that linguistically-based reasons such as the availability of an (apparently) the same genus of entities (the genus of created, artifactual objects) it true quantified sentence like (14) commit us to bizarre entities like Nappy, would be false parsimony to accept the one and reject the other. we should not think that such reasons commit us to fictional entities either. This argument has several problems. For one thing, it postulates an For variants of the problem and complications, see Kroon (2011, 2013, identity of kind between fictional works and fictional entities that is far 2015). from intuitively clear. As Thomasson herself seems to admit (1999: 65), Note that we do not even need quantificational locutions to see the fictional works are syntactical-semantic entities, unlike fictional entities. problem. If one thinks that the truth of the external metafictional sentence But there is a similar argument that does not rely on a parallelism between (5) commits us to the existence of a fictional character, Anna Karenina, fictional works and fictional characters, but on the fact that the identity then it is hard to resist the thought that the truth of the non-quantified conditions of the fictional works refer to fictional characters. In brief: If sentence: we admit a certain kind of entity, we cannot but admit all the other kinds of entities that figure in the identity conditions of such an entity; we admit (16) That little green man is just a trick of the light fictional works; so we cannot but also admit fictional objects because they figure in the identity conditions of fictional works (cf. Voltolini 2003, uttered by someone who wants to describe the mistake made by those 2006). around him who think that they see a little green man, similarly commits

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If the antirealist wants to challenge the realist on directly ontological there. Although at least one influential (erstwhile) realist has conceded the grounds, she has to discredit such arguments, and, better still, provide an power of Everett’s argument, proposing an antirealist notion of argument for the conclusion that there cannot be any fictional entities. assumption-relative truth (Howell 2011, 2015) in place of the realist Curiously enough, Russell, who is usually remembered for having absolute notion he championed earlier (Howell 1979), other realists are originated the ‘paraphrase’ strategy for eliminating apparent reference to likely to think that Everett underestimates the conceptual resources nonexistent entities (see 2.11 above***does not exist*), also used non- available to them. One may, for example, think that the bridging principles linguistically-based ontological arguments against admitting such entities. as stated are too simple to be applied across the board, and that they can be In fact, there is good reason to believe that he took his main argument precisified in a way that is no longer ontologically problematic against Meinong to be that Meinongian entities are apt to violate the law (Thomasson 2010). Or one may say that a distinction between ontic of noncontradiction (cf. Russell 1905a,b). In his 2005 and 2013 works, indeterminacy in a story and ontic indeterminacy with respect to, or out of, Everett reprises and extends Russell’s ontological criticisms so that they a story allows one to rebut the indeterminacy part of the critique (cf. become a critique of fictional entities in particular. He provides a number Schneider & von Solodkoff 2009 and Voltolini 2010). Alternatively, one of arguments that are intended to show that, first, such entities may violate may be able to rebut the critique in its entirety by appealing to more or some basic logical laws—not only the law of noncontradiction, but also less familiar neo-Meinongian distinctions between (i) predicative and the symmetry of identity—and, second, they may be problematically propositional negation and (ii) modes of predication (alternatively, kinds indeterminate with respect to both their existence and identity. These of property) (cf. Voltolini 2010). Of course, antirealists take such arguments are based on odd but intelligible stories in which, for example, distinctions to be poorly understood and part of what makes realism an one individual is both identical to and distinct from another, or in which it unattractive option in the first place (in addition, they may unusable in is indeterminate whether a certain individual exists. The link to fictional complex fiction-involving sentences (see again Everett 2013; for a reply, characters is provided through the bridging principles (more refined cf. Voltolini 2015b)), so even if such rebuttals are successful on their own versions of such principles are provided in his 2013): terms this is not likely to settle the realism-antirealism debate.

(P1) If the world of a story concerns a creature a, and if a is not a real Bibliography thing, then a is a fictional character. (P2) If a story concerns a and b, and if a and b are not real things, then Adams, Fred, Gary Fuller, & Robert Stecker, 1997, “The Semantics of a and b are identical in the world of the story if and only if the Fictional Names”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 78(2): 128–148. fictional character of a is identical to the fictional character of b. doi:10.1111/1468-0114.00032 Berto, Francesco, 2011, “Modal Meinongianism and Fiction: The Best of Everett’s line of attack is interesting and innovative, and (given the Three Worlds”, Philosophical Studies, 152(3): 313–334. worries expressed about language-focused arguments) in some ways a doi:10.1007/s11098-009-9479-2 model of how an antirealist should really pursue the battle against what –––, 2013, Existence as a Real Property: The Ontology of Meinongianism, she believes are ontological illusions. But the debate is not likely to end

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Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 1980, Works and Worlds of Art, Oxford: Oxford abstract objects | existence | fictionalism | Meinong, Alexius | nonexistent University Press. objects | possible objects Yagisawa, Takashi, 2001, “Against Creationism in Fiction”, Philosophical Perspectives, 15: 153–172. doi:10.1111/0029-4624.35.s15.8 Acknowledgments Zalta, Edward N., 1983, Abstract Objects: An Introduction to Axiomatic Many thanks to Gideon Rosen for useful comments on an earlier draft of Metaphysics, Dordrecht: D. Reidel. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-6980-3 this entry and to Luke Manning for his remarks on the previous version of –––, 1992, “On Mally’s Alleged Heresy: A Reply”, History and this entry. We are especially grateful to Paul Oppenheimer for his Philosophy of Logic, 13(1): 59–68. doi:10.1080/01445349208837194 unstinting help and support. –––, 2000, “Pretense Theory and Abstract Object Theory”, in Everett &

Hofweber 2000: 117–147. Copyright © 2018 by the authors –––, 2001, “Fregean Senses, Modes of Presentation, and Concepts”, Fred Kroon and Alberto Voltolini Philosophical Perspectives, 15: 335–359. doi:10.1111/0029- 4624.35.s15.15

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